So Power Word: Solace should be an atonement heal, since the official notes says that it interacts with other spells and abilities in the same manner as Holy Fire, which it replaces. That makes PW:So a mana-free heal plus 1% mana back. Used on cooldown, that would seem to be worth 16.8% base mana per minute (1% per cast, plus the Holy Fire atonement healing without the 1.8% base mana cost = 2.8% mana gained/saved per cast * 6 casts per minute).

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

So Power Word: Solace should be an atonement heal, since the official notes says that it interacts with other spells and abilities in the same manner as Holy Fire, which it replaces. That makes PW:So a mana-free heal plus 1% mana back. Used on cooldown, that would seem to be worth 16.8% base mana per minute (1% per cast, plus the Holy Fire atonement healing without the 1.8% base mana cost = 2.8% mana gained/saved per cast * 6 casts per minute).

That makes PW:Solace a mana-free instant heal plus 1% mana back.

I'll have to wait for the number crunching, but this iteration isn't as bad as the last one - except in PvP. Insanity still useless. Back to the drawing board on that one.

So Solace now works with Atonement. GG Blizz, what are you doing? That is of course, ignoring the same exact mana/sec as Mindbender when both are used on cooldown (except that Mindbender needs a lot less GCDs to get that mana).

Rapture buff/proc removal nerf is more than justified. It's long as sin overdue. But that Spirit Shell nerf...

"Yo guys, we heard you like absorbs, so we gave you a cool spell to be nothing but absorbs. But even though your mastery is absorbs, this won't actually increase with it."

Spirit Shell is getting to the point where at this time next tier it won't be classified as "really really good", but defined gamebreaking. I'm not denying that. But tearing Mastery off of the Mastery defining spell (well, excluding Shield, which they don't want spammed for what should be obvious reasons) seems like... Blizz? Blizz, stahp. Stahp, Blizz. Wat r u doin.

Kinda strange they didn't touch Spirit Shell cooldown or duration. They better hope boss abilities are less predictable or reactive, or it will still be a powerhouse - except this time, it will be done by switching to Crit over Mastery.

Still doesn't look like Holy is able to match Disc, but it's just a first draft, so I guess we'll see later.

"Yo guys, we heard you like absorbs, so we gave you a cool spell to be nothing but absorbs. But even though your mastery is absorbs, this won't actually increase with it."

I spent a great deal of time thinking about how to redesign it when they said they wanted too. The BEST thing I could come up with is "Shield everyone within 40 yards for X, lasting for Y seconds" so that it continues to scale with Mastery but be a little less broken then it was before - and different from PoH. It wasn't a perfect solution (it lowered the skill cap, quite honestly) but it was far, far better then this. So Mastery scales with Shield, and a little with Aegis..and that's it?

Originally Posted by Thehealbus

Wow, a spell that only does absorbs doesn't benefit from mastery which increases the effectiveness of absorbs? How confusing is that.

Pretty damn confusing.

Originally Posted by Thehealbus

How many absorbs will we even have after this that mastery will be used for? Divine aegis and PW:S I guess. I'm guessing pure crit next patch will be the way to go with increased DA proc.

That was my assumption too. Mastery went from our best stat...to our worst? I'll wait for the theorycrafters to crunch the numbers.

Originally Posted by KaPe

Still doesn't look like Holy is able to match Disc, but it's just a first draft, so I guess we'll see later.

Its a fact that Spirit Shell needed nerfing, and im perfectly aware this is the first round of ptr but that nerf is once again rushed and clearly not thought through atall, which is generaly the same with all of blizzards balance decisions these days but hey.

"Hey Mr.Priest, here is your mastery, it increases the absorb amount on all your spells that use absorb mechanics, except the best one, sorry."

It also brings up the question, what are the better stats now if SS is not effected by mastery? A better nerf would of been a cooldown increase, or if they still wanted to go down the mastery route, making it only effect a % of your mastery.

Couldnt care less about the solace change / holy fire, yeh slight pain its not instant anymore but what the hell.

Pretty damn confusing. I'm lost on how big a nerf to spirit shell this actually is. I made a two second calculation at something like 50%.

It's not such a large nerf with PoH, some numbers.
My mastery: 38.56%, crit 11.02%.
Tooltip value for GH: 77,993. Spirit Shell GH: 124409. With the nerf: 86588
Tooltip value for PoH: 29,813. Spirit Shell PoH: 59891 (~tooltip*1.3*mastery*crit). With the nerf and DA/crit fix: 49647 (~tooltip*1.5*crit)
So SS stacking with PoH is still WAY more than viable. Just a tiny nerf IMO.

But to others saying DA has a better proc, it's already in game. It's just a tooltip fix and a fix with Spirit Shell.

Spirit Shell no longer benefits from Mastery, and now properly includes the benefits of Divine Aegis and critical effect chance.

Ok so correct me if am wrong. Spirit shell doesn't benefit from mastery = nerf. BUT, Spirit shell now benefits from divine aegis and critical effect chance = a buff? Divine aegis now shields for 50% of the amount healed which use to be 30%. Even though spirit shell itself isn't affected by mastery, Divine aegis does use our mastery and divine aegis is now counted towards spirit shell. So in the end mastery should still be helping spirit shell.

Spirit Shell no longer benefits from Mastery, and now properly includes the benefits of Divine Aegis and critical effect chance.

Ok so correct me if am wrong. Spirit shell doesn't benefit from mastery = nerf. BUT, Spirit shell now benefits from divine aegis and critical effect chance = a buff? Divine aegis now shields for 50% of the amount healed which use to be 30%. Even though spirit shell itself isn't affected by mastery, Divine aegis does use our mastery and divine aegis is now counted towards spirit shell. So in the end mastery should still be helping spirit shell.

Spirit shell always included divine aegis and crit. It just does it "properly" now.....which is basically their way of putting a positive spin on a devastating nerf.

edit: Also, divine aegis has been a 50% absorb since before 5.1. It was hotfixed a long time ago, but the tooltip wasn't changed. So that isn't a buff either.

I know you guys are going to lose all respect for me, but I don't think I know exactly how Divine Aegis interacts with Mastery. Does Mastery increase the Divine Aegis Shield? I didn't really think it did. In my defense I just PvP almost exclusively now.

I know you guys are going to lose all respect for me, but I don't think I know exactly how Divine Aegis interacts with Mastery. Does Mastery increase the Divine Aegis Shield? I didn't really think it did. In my defense I just PvP almost exclusively now.

Mastery increase the effectiveness of absorbs by it's value as a percentage, so....
Assuming 30 mastery: If you healed for 50k, divine aegis would add an absorb of (50000 / 2) * 1.3 = 32500 on top of the 50k heal.